ASSEDEL is glad to share that our panel discussion this Monday, February 10th, addressing the pressing issue of hate crime and hate speech targeting religious and ethnic communities was a great success! This event emphasized major challenges of this topic but also shed light on possible actions and solutions to better prevent and combat hate speech and hate crime in our society.
We organized this event in collaboration with Evin Incir and her political group, the Socialists and Democrats. It took place at the European Parliament in Strasbourg and brought together key figures of the field:
Evin Incir, Member of the European Parliament, outlined the growing influence of far-right forces in the European Parliament, making it increasingly difficult to implement effective measures against hate speech and hate crime in the European Union. She also stressed the urgent need to counter disinformation and online hate speech by holding digital platforms accountable and further implementing the Digital Services Act. According to Ms. Incir, the EU must ensure that the same rules apply offline as online in order to protect fundamental rights and minority groups in Europe.
Günter Bressau, hate speech specialist and co-founder of REspect! and Report_Hate, continued the discussion on the lack of responsibility among digital platforms and presented a tool helping with this issue: Reporting portals for online hate speech can help to hold aggressors accountable. Mr. Bressau shared findings of his German reporting portal REspect! which processes hate speech reports and forwards them to the police. The majority of reports REspect! receives concern right-wing extremist attacks, while antisemitism and islamophobia are also frequently the subjects of the reported hate speech. The panellist also presented Report_Hate, the first transnational reporting portal in Europe which so far has been set up in Germany, Hungary, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Israel, Croatia, and Spain.
Lilia Bensedrine-Thabet, Co-Chair of the Committee for interreligious & interconvictional Dialogue of the CINGO, highlighted positive approaches of dealing with hatred towards religious and ethnic groups. Her committee is helping to establish a Permanent Platform of Interreligious & Interconvictional Dialogue at the Council of Europe to encourage exchange between people of different religions and beliefs. Ms. Bensedrine-Thabet also shared experiences as director of the Sacrées Journées de Strasbourg, a festival celebrating music from different religions. According to her, such initiatives can limit hate speech and hate crime towards religious and ethnic groups as they help us learn to respect each other’s cultures and see our similarities.
Dr. Wolfram Bechtel, Secretary of the Steering Committee on Anti-Discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion of the Council of Europe (CDADI), explained the interconnectedness of hate speech and hate crime, highlighting that even acts such as stereotyping contributes to the pyramid of hatred. He warned about the quick escalation that can occur within this pyramid, leading to genocide in the worst cases. Dr. Bechtel summarized the recommendations the CDADI has published to the Member States regarding strategies to combat hate speech and hate crime. He pointed out that countries can learn from each other’s approaches regarding hatred and that valuable practices can be found in each Member State of the CoE.
Following the contributions by the panellists, we gave the floor to the audience to ask their questions which enabled an engaged discussion between the audience and the panellists.
Our main take-aways of this panel discussion are that institutions need to be held accountable for their responsibility to enforce measures on the political level against the spread of hatred and that we need to continue addressing topics of discrimination towards minorities and foster exchange between people of different religious and ethnic groups.